


The War is Over and We Are Beginning

by gilligankane



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-02
Updated: 2010-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-17 09:38:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/550183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gilligankane/pseuds/gilligankane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Santana was the head: smart and cutting and capable of disconnecting from her emotions to get things done while Brittany was the heart: caring and loving and always reeling Santana back in when she spun out too far.</p><p>A ficmix.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Side A

**SIDE A**  
  
 **To Ruin It With Words / Sean Fournier**  
Uh Oh, hush for a second / I'm falling in love and I don't wanna wreck it now. / So tell me, baby, what you're thinking, /  **But don't you say a word**. / **'Cause this is perfect and we can't afford**  /  **To ruin it with words**

For as long as she can remember – from the beginning of time, is seems – it’s been Santana-and _-_ Brittany, joined together at the shoulder, the hip, the ankle and everywhere in between. Wherever she went, Brittany inevitably came after, but not vice versa because Brittany was never doing the leading, just the following.

Santana was the head: smart and cutting and capable of disconnecting from her emotions to get things done while Brittany was the heart: caring and loving and always reeling Santana back in when she spun out too far.

Santana always thought it worked. Brittany never had any complaints.

Brittany didn’t complain when Santana claimed that Barbie’s were  _so_  last week; or when she wanted to stop going bowling because wearing shoes that other people sweat in was gross and unfashionable; or when Santana decided that boys had cooties – even though Santana knew that Brittany had a crush on Finn Hudson; or when Santana desperately needed to join the Cheerios.

Or now, as she has Brittany pressed against the wall in Puck’s bathroom and she can’t really feel her toes – Brittany may be stepping on one of her feet – and her hands are tangled in blond hair and Brittany’s t-shirt. Brittany isn’t complaining and it might just be because Santana’s tongue is in the way, but she’d like to think it’s because Brittany is enjoying this as much as she is. It seems like it, at least, because Brittany is clutching both sides of Santana’s face and pulling her in even closer and they  _both_  groan when Santana’s leg slips and her knee hits the wall, sliding between Brittany’s legs. If anything, Santana will later remember, Brittany’s breath kind of catches in her throat and she kisses Santana harder, one hand leaving Santana’s face and moving lightly down her front, whispering along the skin right above her belt buckle.

In the bathroom, with one hand up Brittany’s shirt and her mouth open, gaping, next to Brittany’s ear – because Brittany’s fingers are long and flexible and all kinds of perfect as they steal her virginity – she does something stupid and gets them mixed up: Brittany becomes the head and Santana becomes the heart and when she pulls back, resting her forehead against Brittany’s, panting while Brittany works her hand loose and kisses her again, Santana feels something inside of her fall into place.

It’s cliché, but as Brittany kisses her until she catches her breath – which is really counterproductive, Santana later decides – she looks up and falls in love with Brittany, an angel with a knee-weakening smile.

“S,” Brittany starts to say, but Santana stops her, kissing her until she forget what she wants to say, something that comes in handy for a while, until it doesn’t anymore.

Brittany is naïve and too trusting and has trouble with her words, but she can read people and Santana can feel herself being read and knows what Brittany is coming away with; knows that Brittany can see what Santana is trying to hide.

 _Love_.

It’s a foreign concept at sixteen, to actually experience it, and Santana decides that even if it seems like a good idea, it’s not. Love didn’t keep her parents together and love –  _this_  love, between two girls in Lima, Ohio – will be looked down at, spit upon, and sneered at.

 _Really_ , Santana decides as she leaves Brittany in the bathroom and flounces over to Puck, wrapping her manicured hand around his bicep and lifting up on her toes to whisper dirty things in his ear,  _it’s for their own good_.

 **After All / Sondre Lerche**  
You daren’t define which has happened to us / Well, love had a name for it for some time /  **You try to find what it is that you feel** /  **I long to tell you so truly**  / Oh this could be trouble / After all, after all / No one can say all the things that they feel / Without the risk of a failure / So keep in my cards close to my heart

Brittany knows what people think of her. She can hear them in classrooms –  _Oh, she’s just a little behind_  – and at practice –  _Look at the blond spaz today­_ – and she knows that what they say isn’t nice.

She also knows that, thanks to her mother, it just means their jealous of her because she has things they don’t, like really pretty hair and the boots she got last winter and Santana.

Brittany thinks they’re most jealous that they don’t have Santana.

Santana is the one who makes the whispering stop. She’s the one who clears her throat in classrooms so that the teachers stop looking at her like she shouldn’t even be here and she’s the one who makes the other cheerleaders practice longer when they laugh at Brittany, even if she is the best one on the field – Santana says so.

Brittany knows things about people they don’t even know about themselves. Like when Quinn was pregnant, Brittany knew because Quinn stopped smiling as much and her face got really pale every time Santana mentioned low fat cottage cheese. Then there was when Finn decided he was going to stop being in Glee, Brittany didn’t even have to hear him yell it out loud because she could it in his eyes and she even knew he was more sad than angry. Or when Rachel stopped being in love with Finn and started being in love with Quinn instead, Brittany saw it all kind of fall into place and it was really sweet, so she told Santana how cute it was.

She even knew the moment that Santana decided she would never tell Brittany that she was in love with her: the very moment that Brittany grabbed Santana’s hand in the middle of the hallway, pointed at Quinn staring at Rachel and whispered “Dave Karofsky said that lesbians are abhorrent” followed by “What does that mean?”

Even though Santana said it meant “Karofsky is a douche bag” Brittany knew it wasn’t true and that saying anything at all in the first place was the wrong thing to do and even though she knows she shouldn’t she pulls Santana into the bathroom and asks if Dave Karofsky thinks that  _they’re_  ab-whatever too.

 _That’s_  when Santana decides to never tell Brittany. She watches Santana put on her angry-face and her eyes get really dark – and not in the good, sexy way she likes Santana’s eyes, either – and she pulls her arms out of Brittany’s hands and crosses them over her chest.

“We’re nothing like them, B,” she says in a low voice. The not-good low voice. “They’re  _lesbians_  and you and me? We’re  _not_  lesbians.”

“But don’t we do the same stuff they do?” She only asks because she’s curious and because they might actually do more than Quinn and Rachel; she’s pretty sure Quinn and Rachel have definitely never had sex before and she’s had sex with Santana  _a lot_.

Santana frowns and shakes her head. “Well, they’re in love.”

Brittany feels something in her throat that’s almost like a heartbeat and wonders if maybe her heart got stuck there for a minute.

“And we’re not,” Santana finishes.

“Oh,” Brittany says softly. Santana frowns so she smiles brightly and tosses her hair to one side, feeling stupid even as she does it. “Of course we’re not,” she says, laughing.

Santana stares at her like she doesn’t believe her and she shouldn’t, Brittany thinks, because it’s not true.

They’re totally in love. Santana just doesn’t know it yet.

If she does, she just doesn’t want to say anything about it.

 **Sideways / Citizen Cope**  
 **These feelings won't go away**  /  **They've been knockin' me sideways**  /  **They've been knockin' me out lately** /  **Whenever you come around me**  / These feelings won't go away / They've been knockin' me sideways / I keep thinking in a moment that / Time will take them away / But these feelings won't go away  
  
She wakes up in the middle of the night and almost forgets where she is.

Almost, until she takes a couple of head-clearing breaths and feels Brittany pinning her lower body to the bed and her cheek pressed against jersey cotton and remembers that she spent the night at Brittany’s because she hates staying at her Mom’s house.

She rubs one hand against the smooth skin of Brittany’s back, tracing the muscles deceptively hidden underneath and she feels disgustingly emotional.

She can’t help it, though, especially lately, ever since Quinn and Rachel decided that they didn’t care if Puck made fun of them for making out during Glee, or if Finn glared at them from across the room. Because now that they’re all “out and proud” as Kurt calls it, she feels some heavy, unnecessary pressure to hold Brittany’s hand up in the middle of the school and say “hey, this belongs to me,” which is stupid because Brittany doesn’t belong to anyone and because Santana isn’t the kind of person that seems like she needs people’s acceptance when the truth is she does. She always has. The whole “tough-girl” front she’s been putting up for the longest time is just what she does instead of crying into her pillow every night – like Quinn – or posting self-assuring videos on MySpace – like Rachel.

What worries her more than her ridiculous need to  _claim_  Brittany is her irrational desire to be around her every waking – and non-waking – moment. At first, it wasn’t a big deal. They were best friends, after all, and best friends hang out more than just regular friends – she learned that in first grade when a grumpy, already-repressed, seven-year-old Quinn Fabray told her that Santana didn’t share Brittany well and Santana had pushed Quinn down on the playground and Brittany yelled at her, then explained to Quinn that she only spent so much time with Santana because they were best friends, but they would try harder to be friends with Quinn too.

Except that it’s  _not_  that. It’s a burning  _need_  to be at Brittany’s side all the time, even though being around Brittany makes her nauseous and dizzy the way wine coolers do, without the hangover. Brittany makes her feel like she’s standing upside down and all the blood is rushing to her head and she’s not even trying to stop it, she’s just letting herself get red in face without worrying about what it’s going to do to her brain cells in the long run.

It’s the kind of need that stops her from kissing Puck, even if only for a little while; the kind of need that has her stopping in the middle of a cheer routine because Brittany is standing in a certain spot and she just needs to catch her breath.

It’s the kind of need that has Coach Sylvester pulling her aside and giving her a long lecture on compromising the team’s working ability.

It’s the kind of need that has her actively thinking of excuses to get out of sleepovers, but the look on Brittany’s face – the confusion and disappointment and sadness – end up telling her brain to turn itself off and just get lost in Brittany’s hands and her mouth.

She keeps thinking that if she avoids Brittany, the need will just slowly disappear, but every time she gets away and then comes back, Brittany knocks her flat on her ass with a smile, or a hug, or that thing she can do with her tongue after her parents go to bed.

Santana doesn’t want it, these feelings, or Brittany; but she needs them.

 **What If I’m Wrong? (Acoustic Version) / Ehren Ebbage**  
Yeah I lose all reason / Like somehow I’m just not allowed / To keep my feet beneath me when you come around /  **Make my own demons**  /  **Like there’s harm in believing in fate**  /  **Guess I’m just scared that I’ll make a mistake**  / And I wait here out in the open exposed / The way I imagine / It should be easy / The stars all align as if it were just meant to be / What if I’m wrong? / And you don’t feel the same / Am I getting ahead of myself?

Brittany’s mom gives her a weird look when the door to Brittany’s house finally opens. In all the time they’ve been friends, she’s only rung the doorbell twice, maybe, and only because her mother said it was rude to just walk into people’s house, even when her five-year-old self insisted that Brittany’s mom said she could.

She doesn’t have time to think too much about it, because she’s smiling politely and ducking under Brittany’s mom’s arm and taking the stairs two at a time, moving down the hall and stopping in front of Brittany’s door to take a deep breath.

She’s been avoiding Brittany and she finally can’t take it anymore. There’s an itch inside of her that she can’t scratch and even worse, there’s a furious tug at her heart that she can’t get rid of.

Brittany can do both though.

She knocks lightly and waits almost a whole second before she throws the door open and slides in, closing it behind her quickly.

“Hey,” she whispers.

Brittany, sitting cross-legged on her bed, looks up briefly, then looks down again.

“Okay,” Santana starts. “I know that I’ve been weird lately-”

“You’re avoiding me,” Brittany accuses.

Santana nods slowly. “Yes, but I’m done doing that now,” she continues quickly when she sees Brittany frown. Brittany seems to think about it and then she smiles wide and bright and Santana can’t stop her own grin from spreading across her face, making her feel like her face is breaking into halves.

Brittany picks up onto her knees and grabs the loop of Santana’s jeans and pulls, hard. She lets her knees buckle and her mouth lead out blindly, finding Brittany’s chin first. She goes with it, moving down to the hollow of Brittany’s throat while Brittany’s hand move across her abdomen, sliding her shirt up enough to work at the button of her jeans.

Santana pushes Brittany’s hands away and slips down onto her knees, Brittany in between her thighs and moves forward until Brittany is on her back and Santana is thanking the dancing gods that Brittany is as flexible as she is. She hooks her hands under Brittany’s knees and pushes them back so that Brittany is flat on her back and it’s not graceful but it works and Brittany is grinning up at her and lifting her hips and then it’s just the smooth skin of Brittany’s thigh underneath Santana’s hand.

When she traces Brittany’s hipbone, Brittany makes a noise in the back of her throat and surges up, her elbows pressing into the mattress and her mouth finding Santana’s – something Santana finds amusing, because Brittany’s eyes are closed – and she’s inhaling, taking in Santana’s lower lip. Santana whimpers, unabashedly, and tries to pull Brittany closer than she already is.

Brittany’s hands are cold; one traces her jawbone but the other grabs onto her hip and when Santana catches her breath again, she’s on her back and Brittany’s hand is already past her button, tugging on her fly, sliding and her hand feels like it’s on fire, or maybe her body is on fire and Brittany is trying to cool her down.

She can’t tell anymore because Brittany is kissing her neck, that one spot that makes her forget  _everything_.

She forgets that she’s trying to avoid this thing with Brittany; forgets that it’s irrational and wrong; forgets that she promised herself this wouldn’t happen again. She forgets it all when she opens her eyes and looks up at Brittany smiling down at her.

It doesn’t matter how Brittany feels – well, actually, if matters more than Santana wants to admit – and if this all they are – which isn’t all Santana wants, even if she’ll  _never_  admit that – she doesn’t care, for a moment, about being wrong or losing anyone or whatever they have because that smile makes anything she says okay.

She arches against the mattress, her hips pressing up against Brittany’s hand and Brittany’s face in her neck and when Brittany finds that one spot, she forgets to bite down on her lip and her mouth opens and she just kind of lets go.

“I love you,” she groans out, her body crashing back down.

Brittany still against her and lifts her head slowly, but she kind of just stares at Santana like she’s not sure what to say.

Santana comes back to her senses when the stars in her eyes start to fade and when she blinks, she realizes she’s just lying on her back on Brittany’s bed Brittany’s hand down her pants and she said something stupid and she can’t take it back and Brittany isn’t saying  _anything_.

When Brittany goes to open her mouth, Santana doesn’t want to deal with anything she has to say – whether it’s  _“I hate you”_  or “ _I love you”_  – so she rolls them back over and kisses her until Brittany forgets she was going to say anything in the first place.

 _Stupid_ , she berates herself later, when Brittany is sleeping.  _Stupid, stupid, stupid_.

 **Let’s Talk About Spaceships / Say Hi To Your Mom**  
And what's that saying again / They're only words / And words can't kill me /  **Let's talk about spaceships**  /  **Or anything except you and me, okay?**  / Let's talk about spaceships / Or anything except you and me, okay? / Okay...

Brittany keeps trying to bring it up and its grating on Santana’s last nerve – well, her  _only_  nerve, if she wants to be entirely honest.

She slipped up and that’s on her, but Brittany, for all her smiles and sunshine and unicorns, never learned how to take a hint or the meaning of the phrase “drop it” unless the  _it_  in question were her pants – she knows she’s being cruel, just thinking that, but she’s losing the patience she doesn’t even have.

In her own defense, Brittany’s hands were down her pants and everyone knows that what you say during sex –  _because that’s all it is,_  she tells Brittany over and over and over again – doesn’t really count because you’re entire emotional being is compromised in those minutes, hours, seconds,  _whatever_.

Saying  _“I love you”_ was clearly a mistake, if only because Brittany refuses to let it go; keeps bringing it up in between classes and as they’re heading into Glee – where Santana is pretty sure that Quinn overheard Brittany telling her that it was okay and her fierce  _“I have no idea what you’re talking about”_ response. Every corner she turns, Brittany is there with a pathetically adorable pout on her face and her hands on her hips and she’s demanding a fair chance to respond to Santana’s outburst.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she hisses as the rest of the Cheerios file out of the locker room.

“S-”

Santana snaps back around and jabs a finger in Brittany’s direction. “Stop talking about it.”

Brittany nods slowly and doesn’t talk to her about it – or anything – for the whole practice. Coach pulls her aside again and tells her to man up to whatever is going on, because it’s messing up the pyramid and  _“so help me, S, if one of you are preggers like that Quinn failure, I’ll make it so you never have children after this one and I’ll mar your faces like bear mauls a bag of food someone forgot to tie up on a camping trip.”_

So Santana finds Brittany in the parking lot, waiting for a ride that’s never going to come – because Santana is, always has been and always will be, her ride home – and she sits down on the steps next to her, finally telling herself  _“fuck it”_  and reaching over, taking Brittany’s hand and bringing it into her own lap.

She hates the way that Brittany’s face lights up when she know she’s only going to let her down, because Brittany thinks that they’re going to talk about it and they’re going to just make-out here in the parking lot where everyone can see them, but they’re not.

“It was a mistake,” she whispers, once and soft.  _Liar_ , the voice inside her head yells at her, but she blocks it out and is left with a roar in her ears, like she’s holding seashells up to them.

They might be only words – four, small, two-syllables-or-less kind of words – but words are the most dangerous kind of weapon, the most vicious of killing in the world. Words can break and mend and Santana has never been taught how to use them to repair, only to destroy.

She won’t say it again – because she’s not  _that_  mean, no matter what people say or believe – but she doesn’t even need to, because Brittany hears her and pulls her hand back out of Santana’s grasp, clutching it to her chest like it’s been burned.

“B,” she says quietly, moving up a step and over, wrapping her arms around Brittany from behind. “We, uh,” she trails off.

Brittany turns her head a few inches expectantly.

“We need to talk about the routine for Nationals. Coach Sylvester said we’re sloppy babies again and-”

Brittany stiffens in her hold and lifts her arms so that Santana’s arms rise up and let Brittany free. She stands and gives Santana a wide smile – the first fake smile that Santana has ever seen Brittany give, to  _anyone_. “Maybe if we tried the floor routine before the jump rope,” she offers. Santana doesn’t say that they’re actually the same thing and that Brittany’s suggestion isn’t helpful at all, because she’s sitting on the steps of McKinley High School, staring up at a Brittany she’s never seen before.

A Brittany who doesn’t look like she needs a Santana anymore.

“B,” she tries again, suddenly wanting to take it back; wanting to say that it wasn’t a mistake, that she really did mean it, she’s totally, epically, in Romeo-and-Juliet love with Brittany, minus all the preteen angst and death.

“You wanted to talk about jump rope,” Brittany reminds her in a voice that’s hard and cool and disturbing.

Santana should be  _proud_  because some of her bitterness really has managed to rub off on Brittany – and Puck owes her ten bucks for that, too – but she’s more afraid than anything; afraid that she’s just sacrificed Brittany to the Gods of Snark and Anger and Sarcasm and she’ll never get her back now – people rarely give back sacrifices these days, except that Abraham guy from the bible who tried to give his son up for God’s praise.

“Sure,” she says slowly. “Jump rope.”

 **Shimmer / Bronson Arroyo**  
 **She says she's ashamed**  /  **Can she take me for awhile**  / Can I be a friend, we'll forget the past / Or maybe I'm not able / 'Cause I have found / All that shimmers in this world is sure to fade

Tap, tap.

She sits up in bed and looks around but can’t see anything. There’s another tap and she crawls across the bed and peers up over the window, looks down into the yard and frowns.

Santana is standing on the front lawn, waving her arms wildly and spinning in a circle and it’s almost like she doesn’t even know that Brittany is in the window looking down at her. With a little work – because her Dad closed the windows last time – she manages to lift it a crack.

“B!”

Brittany winces and lets the window drop back down before she pulls on her shorts – it’s really hot in her house – and tiptoes down the stairs, across the kitchen floor and out the front door. The lawn is wet and gross under her feet but Santana is sitting in the middle of it with her legs spread out in front of her and her goofy smile on. She looks like she’s stretching for practice, except that when she stretches for practice she always looks so serious and now she just looks happy.

“Hey,” Santana says. Brittany thinks she looks cute like this, with her face stretched out all wide and her eyes closed a little.

She thinks that Santana is so cute she forgets she’s mad at her.

Except then Santana’s smile starts to slip a little, in the corner and then it’s almost all gone and her eyes are wide open – the way that they were when they spent the night watching horror movies until Santana finally decided that she couldn’t watch them anymore – and she’s kind of crying.

Brittany doesn’t it like it when Santana cries. She’s doesn’t look pretty when she cries and she always gets angry afterwards and that’s not fun either because Santana will never let Brittany hug her after she cries. She thinks that makes her weak but Brittany just thinks that maybe someone messed up when they were making Santana and they forgot to connect all the wires in her heart.

She told her mother this when she was younger, but her mom said that wasn’t true: Santana had all the right parts and all the right wires but she never had anyone to teach her how to use them.

Brittany could never decide which one was more sad.

When Santana starts to cry, Brittany remembers that she’s mad at her again; she remembers that Santana said she doesn’t love her; she remembers that even though they’re still friends, she doesn’t want to be Santana’s best friend anymore until Santana says she’s sorry – which won’t happen because Santana thinks apologizing is “weak” too.

So she crosses her arms over her chest and juts out her hip – just the way Santana taught her – and frowns. “What’s wrong with you?”

Santana just sort of wails, like Brittany’s dog used to do at the moon before her Dad sent him away forever, and rolls over until her face is in the grass. Brittany waits thirty-three seconds and then she starts to leave, because it’s hot in the house, but the grass is really cold and Santana isn’t using her words so Brittany just can’t solve the problem.

A really cold hand wraps around her ankle and Brittany forget that she’s awake and thinks she’s having that dream again, the one where she’s standing at the edge of a lake, like the one in Harry Potter and something slimy and gross comes up out of the water and tries to suck her into the black water and Brittany can’t swim. She almost kicks at the hand, but when Santana says “please” in a really small voice, she remembers that she’s standing on her front lawn in boxers and a tank top and Santana is lying in the grass.

“I slept with Puck,” Santana whispers, but she’s not looking at Brittany’s face, she’s looking at Brittany’s ankle. “And I’m drunk.”

Brittany pulls her ankle away and thinks about maybe helping Santana off the ground, because she just looks so sad down there, but she doesn’t.

“And I just want you to make it better, baby,” Santana keeps whispering, sliding across the grass, grabbing for Brittany’s ankle and missing, then grabbing again and finding Brittany’s foot.

It’s very sad, Brittany thinks, that Santana is ruining her pretty dress, but now she remembers that she’s mad at Santana and she’s not a toy; Santana doesn’t get to pick and choose when they can be friends or more or less.

“I can’t,” she finally says, lifting her leg high enough so that Santana’s hand slides off of it. “I’ve got to go inside now. And you should go home. The neighbors already think we’re weird.”

She goes back into the house, leaving her grass-soaked sandals at the door and her shorts at the bottom of her bed and she climbs under the covers, pulling them up over her head and burrowing down into the darkness, because that’s when all the bad things go away, and she just wants Santana to leave.


	2. Side B

**SIDE B**  
  
 **Blame You / Wakey!Wakey!**  
So you are the only person in this room / And I can’t take my eyes off you / I bet you can’t guess what I would do / To kiss you in the middle of the room / So you got sense / And I got shit / So I’m just trying to swallow it /  **But I tell you right now**  /  **If I see you again**  /  **I’m gonna kiss you in the middle of the room**  / I tell you right now / If I see you again / I’m gonna kiss you in the middle of the room

When  _Rachel_  brings up the tension between them – the lack of touching and Santana’s hair staying firmly in her ponytail instead of twisted in braids by Brittany’s hands – Santana decides she’s had enough of this.

She’s in love with Brittany.

It doesn’t take Rachel Berry to make her realize this; she’s known since the first time in the bathroom, since the first time she walked away and left Brittany standing there on her own. She’s known since the first time she barged into Brittany’s room and kissed her with the door open, recklessly, and then slammed it shut, pushing Brittany up against it a moment later. She’s known she’s in love with Brittany since the moment Brittany’s back arched against the door and her face went completely blank before she crashed down against Santana, taking them both to the floor, then immediately apologized for grabbing Santana’s shirt and wrinkling it and starts to smooth it out.

She’s in love with Brittany.

She’s in love with Brittany.

_She’s in love with Brittany._

She says it a few times, to get used to it, and when she looks herself in the eye, in the mirror, and says it slowly and surely, it feels  _right_  and warm and she’s been so stupid before, chasing after Puck, sending him dirty texts messages –  _sexts_ , she thinks bitterly, that only got her in trouble when Brittany found out about it and ended up with her climbing a trestle in the middle of the night, threatening to sing show tunes unless Brittany opened the window and let her in.

Puck isn’t her boyfriend; he’s a play thing, if he means anything at all.

Brittany, though, could be her  _girlfriend_  if she stopped a minute to pull her head out of her ass – a point Quinn makes very,  _very_  clear when she pulls Santana aside and berates her for a half an hour.

“Santana,” Mr. Schuester says gently, pulling her out of her thoughts.

She looks up, bewildered for a moment and then blushes. She’s sitting at her desk in Spanish even though class is long over and she looks up to apologize to Mr. Schue, because sitting here alone when she really should be in English right now is embarrassing, but he’s looking down at the paper she’s been doodling on.

More specifically, he’s twisting his head to read all different ways she wrote out Brittany’s name and he’s probably counting all the little hearts – the number 53 comes to her mind effortlessly – and he definitely doesn’t know what to say, with his mouth opening and closing like that, so she spares them _both_  the mortification and shoves the paper into her bag, zipping it quickly and hoisting it over her shoulder.

“Sorry,” she says, looking away from him.

“Well, hey,” he calls as she’s almost out of the door. She turns back and he’s giving her this look like he doesn’t know what to say: wide eyes and small, open mouth and if what they say is true, that people start to look like their pets after a while, Santana wonders if it’s possible to look like another person after spending too much time together, because Mr. Schue looks  _just_ like Ms. Pillsbury. “You should tell her,” he finally says.

Santana Lopez has perfected the eye roll; has made it more vicious and useable than even Quinn Fabray, and this is the type of situation that calls for one, perfect, deadly eye roll, forever cementing herself as better than Will Schuester, the wanna-be Broadway star Glee teacher.

Except that she can’t. Her eyes probably widen a little, if they do anything at all.

“I might,” she admits.

Will Schuester becomes the first person she tells about what she plans to do, even if she’s not telling him with words. He nods reassuringly and almost seems relieved – the tension in Glee must be thicker than she thought – and smiles.

“I will,” she amends, lifting her shoulders and head high. “The next time I see her.”

 **My Heart / The Perishers**  
It’s my heart you’re stealing / It’s my heart you take / It’s my heart you’re dealing with / And it’s my heart you’ll break /  **It’s my heart you** **’re taking**  /  **It’s breaking bit by bit**  /  **It’s my heart you** **’re dealing with**  / But you don’t know about it

“Have you seen Brittany?” she asks Quinn, leaning up against the wall of lockers. She thinks that Quinn flinches, but doesn’t have the time and doesn’t care enough to stop and question.

“Uh, no,” Quinn says, closing her locker and moving down the hallway.

“Well, do you know where she could be?” Santana asks, following.

Quinn pulls up short and raises an eyebrow. “Isn’t she  _your_  best friend?”

“That doesn’t mean I track her every move,” Santana growls.  _At least_ , she thinks  _I don’t anymore._

Quinn might be thinking the same thing because she’s nodding her head slowly like she doesn’t believe Santana at all and then shrugs her shoulders and looks generally sorry.

“You could try finding Rachel, maybe? They’ve been talking a lot lately since you,” Quinn trails off and bites her bottom lip. “Anyway,” she pushes on “you might be able find her that way. I’m sorry, I just  _really_  have to pee.”

Santana watches Quinn take off down the hallway and sighs, gliding through the halls trying to find Rachel.

She sees Puck first instead.

“Hey, sexy,” he leers. She rolls her eyes. “What’s up?”

“I’m looking for Brittany,” she says flatly, not really interested in talking to him longer than necessary – anything that has to do with Puck tends to make Brittany cranky.

“Haven’t seen her.” His eyes give him away, even if he smirks, because they go wide and then slide back to their normal size and he’s lying through his teeth. “Are you sure you let her out of her cage this week?” he asks in a cruel voice.

She resists the urge to pull back and hit him hard across the jaw, because she kind of deserves it. She  _does_  keep Brittany away from other people, but it’s only because the whole world  _loves_  Brittany and Brittany is the only one who loves her and it makes her selfish, which makes people hate her even more.

It’s a vicious cycle and without Brittany it just means she’s feared, hated and forgotten about.

The truth is, she’d rather be selfish if that means she gets Brittany.

“Puck,” she snarls. “Where is she?”

“Babe,” he starts, but now she balls up her fist and slams it down against his shoulder bone, not sure if she inflicts as much pain on him as she inflicts on herself. “Damn it!”

She did.  _Awesome_.

“If you did  _anything_ to her,” but he lifts his hands in surrender.

“Put the claws away, you crazy bitch.” She ignores the insult and glares at him expectantly with her hands on her hips. His face soften unexpectedly and her glare falters a little and she doesn’t like the way he’s looking at her, like he feels  _sorry_  for her. “She might be in the band room,” he says hesitantly.

She stares him like he has three heads and then huffs in annoyance, turning to walk back down the hall.

“Santana, wait!” he calls after her, jogging a few steps until he’s back in front of her, his hands on her shoulders holding her in place. She’s trying to place his facial expression – she’s seen it before, just never directed her at and it’s unsettling because she finally realizes that this is the same way he looks at Quinn and Finn, like he’s eternally looking for forgiveness. “If you want to talk, later, or anything, call me, okay?”

She scoffs and pushes him hands off her. “Keep dreaming, Puckerman.”

The band room is ahead on the left and she can feel Puck’s eyes on her – not on her ass, either, for the first time ever, but more on the back of her neck like he knows something and he’s just waiting to see how she’s going to react.

When she finally comes back to her senses, she’s actually glad Noah Puckerman has a good guy inside struggling to stay afloat in the midst of his need to prove he’s a badass, because he takes her by the shoulders gently and steers her away from the band room door and tucks her under his arm, glaring at Quinn – because Santana can’t and she just  _knows_  that Quinn knew about this – and into his truck. He doesn’t turn it on until she whispers  _“go”_  and then he takes her home, not paying attention to her except to place a tissue from the glove compartment on her lap – and here’s where she decides that if Quinn keeps the kid, Puck will make a good dad someday – and even then he ignores when she crumples it up in her hand and wipes furiously at her face and her eyes.

No matter how hard she digs the tissue in and scrapes it across her eyelids, she can’t get the image of Finn’s tongue down Brittany’s throat – and Finn’s hands in Brittany’s hair and Finn’s goofy smirk and Finn’s stupid lanky boy body wrapped around Brittany’s – to go away.

She can’t get the cracking in her chest to stop either.

 **Samson / Regina Spektor**  
 **You are my sweetest downfall**  /  **I loved you first , I loved you first**  / Beneath the stars came falling on our heads / But they're just old light / They're just old light / Your hair was long when we first met

Santana throws the chair against the wall because it’s not fair.

She tears down her poster of The National Cheerleading Association because it’s not fair.

She kicks the frame of the bed hard because it’s not fair.

When her little brother comes in to see what all the noise is about, she throws a stuffed animal at him because  _it’s not fair_.

He gets her now; he gets to run his gross hands through her hair and he gets to kiss her and he gets to hold her hand in the hallways and Brittany is probably going to tell him she loves him, just because he’ll probably say it first, because he’s Finn and he’s 100% about things like this and it’s not fair.

She picks up a picture frame off her desk and cocks her arm back, ready to throw it against the opposite wall, but she stops and slumps down against the side of her bed and stares at it in her hands. It’s a heavy picture frame, made of wood and nothing on it is even. The corners are rounded on one side and sharp on the other and the front slopes down and it’s painted in the worst colors that clash and ran when the paint dried and it’s perfect.

Brittany made it the summer before 8th grade, at the camp her parents  _made_  her go to.

It was the worst two weeks of Santana’s life.

She looks at the picture with disdain: she was so chubby before high school and Brittany, of course, was perfect – with her long blond hair and her blue eyes, everyone fawned over her and Santana was just her overweight, Latina friend.

She kicks out uselessly, hitting nothing but air.

It’s not fair.

Why does  _he_  get Brittany? Why now, just when she was finally ready to tell Brittany that all those times she said  _“sex isn’t dating”_  and  _“we’re just friends”_ she was lying; just when she was finally ready to announce to everyone – whether they liked it or not – that she was in love with Brittany and they better back off.

Why  _now_?

 _Because Karma’s a bitch_ , a voice in her head practically sings.  _Because this is what you get for being a bitch your entire life and pushing her away when all she wanted was for you to pull her closer and love her._

It’s disgusting that the I-told-you-so voice in her head sounds exactly like Quinn.

Her cell phone rings, pulling her out of her own head, and she fumbles with it for a minute, staring at it dumbly while it screams  _“I Gotta Feeling, oo, hoo, that tonight’s gonna be a good night_ ” at her.

“Hello?”

“S!” Brittany screams into the phone, immediately laughing. “You’re  _never_  going to guess what happened today.”

Santana can’t only guess, she could probably describe  _in detail_  what happened, but she let’s Brittany go on and on about how he stopped her in the middle of the hallway as he was walking with Karofsky and asked her out in front of everyone –  _I told you so,_ the Quinn-voice coos – and how he was blushing it and it was  _“so cute, S, you should have seen it.”_  She let’s Brittany go on and on about where they’re going to have their first date –  _and really_ , Santana thinks,  _they haven’t even gone on a date and they’re making out in empty classrooms_  – and then Brittany pauses and gets quiet.

“B?”

She hears Brittany breathe on the other line. “Hey, how come you’re not at school anymore? Puck said you went home, but your car is still here.” There’s another pause and she can only imagine Brittany frowning. “S, can we be done fighting now? I need you to help me plan my outfit.”

The cracking in her chest that hid under the anger comes back, louder and harder and it hurts more now.

“Sure,” she chokes out. “But later. I’m not feeling good.”

She hangs up and throws the picture frame against the wall, but it doesn’t break into pieces, it just digs a hole into the wall and falls to the ground all together.

It’s not fair.

 **Tin Man / The Avett Brothers**  
You can't be like me / But be happy that you can't / I see pain but I don't feel it / I am like the old tin man / I'm as warm as a stone / I keep it steady as I can /  **I see pain but I don't feel it**  / I  **am like the old tin man**  /  **I miss that, I miss that, oh, I miss that feeling of feeling**  / And if you won't give my heart back / I've no need to stick around

Finn and Brittany are ridiculously and disgustingly  _cute_.

They finish each other sentences and they laugh at jokes that no one understands and Finn holds doors open for Brittany and tells her she’s pretty and Brittany tells Finn that it’s not his fault he didn’t understand the math homework, because some numbers are harder to add than others.

It makes Santana’s insides roll over and over and pretty soon – mostly because she’s tired of the giggling in her ear and being the go-between for note passing – she walks into Spanish one day and sits in Finn’s seat, next to Rachel and no one questions her on it. Not even Brittany, which stings a little more than she thought it would.

Then it doesn’t sting at all, because she’s developing immunity to heartbreak – that, or she’s really cold-hearted after all – and she just begins to get annoyed with their coupleness.

When she catches them making out in the locker room, Brittany’s Cheerios top on the floor with Finn’s hideous purple sweater, she shuts down, becoming Santana 2.0 – all of the snark, more actually, and less the emotion.

Coach Sylvester calls it  _“Outstanding!”_  but Mr. Schuester looks at her and shakes his head sadly.

She becomes a force to be reckoned with. The hallway all but clears out whenever she walks to class and in Glee, Puck is the only one who will dance with her because he’s not afraid of her snapping at him for messing up and he’s the only she’ll let touch her.

Finn makes the mistake of goofing off and grabbing her around the waist to spin her and the entire room is on their feet, Puck’s arm low around her waist and Brittany pushing Finn back, away from Santana because she’s snarling at him.

She becomes Quinn Fabray with better hair, less morals, and more minions willing to do her dirty work. Coach Sylvester looks on proudly, slaps a hand on her shoulder, calls her captain and takes her to the television studio one night, so she  _“can see how winners work.”_  She becomes flesh and bone and blood, but there’s no emotion in her eyes anymore and she stop dreaming and when Finn tickles Brittany during Glee, she stops cringing because she doesn’t even feel her heart breaking anymore.

She’s never been the heart and now she doesn’t have one anymore because Brittany is gone and the one in her chest has stopped working.

Her parts start to rust: her eyes go dry and she stops moving fluidly and the entire time, Mr. Schuester keeps shaking his head and Coach Sylvester is trying to create a stone monument in her honor.

She pulls away from everyone, tells Coach Sylvester everything and ignores the hollow sound that echoes in her room when she lies awake at night, wondering if Brittany even misses her.

 **I’ll Believe You When / Matchbox Twenty**  
I could call you everyday / Give presents by the score / And I could send you pretty flowers / Have them waiting at your door /  **I could write up in the sky** /  **Forgive me I apologize**  /  **Still if I went through every measure**  /  **With my promise To Be Better**  /  **You'd say**  /  **(Whoa) I'll believe you when**  / **(Whoa) I'll believe you when**  /  **(Whoa) When everything you say don't turn out wrong**

In passing, Quinn says  _“oh, by the way, Britt and Finn split up”_  as if it’s the most insignificant sentence in the world; as if that one sentence doesn’t put Santana’s heart back together.

She’s not sure why they broke up. It doesn’t actually matter much at all. What matters is that Finn and Brittany aren’t dating anymore – they’re still friends, of course, because Brittany is the type of person you’re friends with after you break up, unless you’re Santana Lopez – and that means Brittany can be hers again, like she was always supposed to be.

Except Brittany still won’t kiss her, or touch her, or even laugh at her stupid attempts to make jokes.

If she wants to be rational, she can understand why Brittany doesn’t believe her when she promises that everything will be fine, good, better than before. She’s just not a rational person though; she’s all temper and fire and lack of patience and she’s greedy when she wants something and she wants _Brittany_.

Brittany, for once in her life, looks at Santana and says  _“no.”_

“No?” Santana sputters, not quite sure she heard that right.

Brittany nods and pulls her arms tighter around her chest and says it again.

So she tries different things: flowers and cards that she makes in Spanish class and even a necklace on a Thursday, just because.

The flowers are put in the trash, left in the band room, ignored, and on one occasion, Brittany rolls her eyes and gives them to Rachel, in front of Santana, saying that she never liked sunflowers anyway – everyone knows it’s a lie; Brittany likes them because they look like the sun.

The cards – all hand-drawn and colored with pastels – are shoved into Brittany’s Spanish book, which is really Santana’s Spanish book, and ignored. Brittany never even reads them, not even when Finn takes one, reads it and hands it back to the blond telling her that she should at least  _look_  at it.

The necklace, which Santana thought would seal the deal, ends up back in her locker. She knows Brittany didn’t put it there – she can hardly remember her own locker combination, let alone Santana’s – but when she opens her locker on Friday morning, it’s sitting right in front of her Spanish book with all the cards Brittany never read neatly stacked next to it.

After some minor threats, Jacob Ben Israel admits to doing it.

She marches down the hallway, holding the necklace and the cards like their on fire and finds Brittany in the cafeteria laughing at something Mercedes has said. Brittany doesn’t see her but Mercedes and Tina do, and their eyes go wide and then they’re scrambling up in their seats, grabbing their bags and taking off in the opposite direction, not stopping long enough to say goodbye.

She smiles inwardly; it’s nice to know she’s still got it.

Brittany turns in her seat and glares. “See what you did?”

Santana shrugs her shoulders – she really doesn’t care – and sits down even though Brittany stands up. “I got you this,” she says, pushing the necklace box across the table.

“And I gave it back,” Brittany says, not even bothering to push it back across the table.

“Well,  _why_?”

The look Brittany gives her is one of more colorful expressions Brittany has ever produced: it’s a mix of shock and confusion and disgust and in her eyes, Santana can read the words  _“are you kidding me?”_

“Because I don’t want it.”

“But I want you to have it.”

Brittany shrugs her shoulders and glances away – she hates confrontations and Santana is making it into a confrontation, half out of her seat, her voice louder than it needs to be. “But,” she says slowly, dragging the word out. “I don’t. If I take that, that means I’m done being mad at you. And I’m not,” she adds.

“But-”  

“Just because me and Finn aren’t together anymore doesn’t mean I’m going to be with you,” Brittany says firmly.

“Well  _why the hell not_ ,” Santana almost snarls. Brittany looks around guiltily and Santana glances at the room out of the corner of her eye. Only Karofsky is watching them, but the rest of the kids hanging in the cafeteria until the morning bell seem to be busy or avoiding getting caught eavesdropping.

Brittany stares.

“B,” Santana says, stepping forward, her voice low. “I  _love_  you.”

“I don’t believe you,” Brittany says, just as low. Santana can tell she feels sorry, saying it like that, but she also can see something like resolve behind Brittany’s frown.

“So how I do I prove I’m telling the truth?” she asks, trying not to sound too desperate.

Brittany only shrugs and leaves Santana standing at the table by herself.

 **Follow Through / Gavin DeGraw**  
So since you want to be with me /  **You** **’ll have to follow through**  /  **With every word you say**  / And I, all I really want is you / For you to stick around / I’ll see you everyday / But you have to follow through 

Brittany is serious.

She’s not serious about much in her life, because there’s really no fun in that at all, but she’s very serious about  _this_.

The hand-holding, kissing in the hallway, switching cheerleading jackets, going out on double dates with Mike and Matt – she’s totally sure that they’re going to get over their rough patch and that Mike’s mom will stop trying to get him to date a girl – and punching Karofsky when he makes a mean comment, because he will, are all nice, but they’re not enough.

If Santana wants to be with her, if she wants to be her girlfriend and wants to be her forever and all the gushy stuff Santana claims she wants, then it’s got to be  _real_. No more hiding, no more denying, no more sexting Puck to uphold her image because Brittany is kind of slightly disgusted by him even if Santana thinks he’s changed since he seduced Quinn – it’s something Santana refuses to talk about with her, and whenever she asks, Santana says it doesn’t matter anymore, but their trying to be friends.

If Santana wants her, she’s going to have to prove it.

Not flowers or anything like that – because Santana tried that before and it never seemed real because Santana isn’t a flower-giving kind of person and it was like there was an alien invader in Santana’s body, being too nice and too sweet and too good and that’s not even how she likes Santana best. She likes when Santana gets jealous – but not too jealous – and when she pouts – because she’s really cute – and even a little bit when she threatens to hurt people – because Brittany thinks it’s kind of sexy.

If Santana really wants her, she’s going to have to promise and she’s going to have to mean it.

Like getting married.

It’s not really the best way to explain it to Santana because she hates the idea of marriage and stopped helping Brittany plan their weddings after her parents split up for good, but that’s all that she can think about when she’s trying to explain it to Santana. She wants a ring, or something, as proof that Santana is really hers.

Santana says that rings don’t prove anything except that someone has money, but she tells Brittany she understands anyway.

Santana says that words don’t really mean anything, but she tells Brittany she understands anyway.

So when Santana looks down at her feet, then looks out Brittany’s window and mumbles “Of course I’ll never leave you,” Brittany waits until Santana’s face flushes and she adds “again,” in even more of a whisper before she grabs Santana around the neck and kisses her.

She feels Santana’s body go really limp and she thinks that maybe Santana fell asleep and that’s rude, because she’s is trying to kiss her, but then Santana’s hands are clutching her face and Santana is pulling back and she’s looking into Brittany’s face the way she looks when she’s practicing cheers and it makes Brittany a little nervous because Santana looks serious and a Serious Santana is usually followed by another “no touching” rule.

“You have to promise too,” Santana whispers.

Now Brittany is serious and confused, because she never did anything wrong. She’s not the one who couldn’t say  _“I love you”_  back; she’s not the one who didn’t want everyone to know

“I know,” Santana says. She’s glad that Santana can read her mind a lot, because Santana’s hands are now on her hipbones and they’re moving in slow circles, the kind of circles that make it hard for her to remember what she was thinking about in the first place. “But you have to promise too, because,” she trails off and frowns and Brittany wants to kiss it away but Santana opens her mouth again. “Because I need you,” she whispers. “I need you even more than you need me.”

She thinks that Santana is wrong, but if she argues, the kissing and the touching will stop and  _that’s the whole point_  she reminds herself,  _to keep kissing forever because it’s nice and because you love her_.

“Okay,” she finally whispers back, not sure why they’re whispering in the first place, because they’re the only ones in the house, but when Santana smiles and kisses her again, whispering doesn’t matter much.

“We’ll both promise,” she adds after another kiss. “Like a vow.”

Santana groans, says something Brittany doesn’t understand – probably in Mexican, which is what Santana speaks, right? – but she kisses Brittany again, so maybe she’s not that angry after all.

 **In Our Bedroom After The War / Stars**  
But at least the war is over /  **It’** **s us**  /  **Yes, we’** **re back again**  / Here to see you through til the day’s end / And if the night comes, and the night will come / Well at least the war is over

Telling everyone is easier than she thought it would – a couple glares at certain people (like Puck and Finn, even if Brittany elbows her and says not to be mean to him) and few raised eyebrows at others (Rachel, upon hearing the news, immediately turns to Quinn and demands the winnings of the bet because they fessed up before the end of the month) – and suddenly no one is paying attention when Brittany leans over at the end of a song and kisses Santana’s cheek.

The only one who notices is Karofsky, but he starts taking the long way to classes, afraid of her.

“See?” Brittany asks with a bright smile, tucking her hand in the back of Santana’s jeans – it’s a weekend, after all.

She rolls her eyes and says  _“sure, babe”_  as she presses her lips to Brittany’s temple, ignoring that she has to lift up on her toes a little to actually reach Brittany’s forehead.

Later, when Brittany whispers  _“S, please”_  and drops down next to her, settling into the crook of her arm, her hair tickling the underside of Santana’s jaw, Santana closes her eyes and breathes and takes a moment to just stare at the sunshine yellow ceiling of Brittany’s room.

Her eyes slip closed and she falls asleep without even meaning to.

When she wakes back up, she remembers exactly where she is, who she’s with, and why.

Brittany’s still pinning her down to the bed – so she couldn’t leave even if she wanted to – and she’s drooling onto the terrible jersey cotton Brittany insists she can’t sleep without and it’s so far from perfect because there’s a chill in the room from the window being open and Brittany isn’t really known for her human heating abilities and she’s  _drooling_  all over Brittany’s pillow, but then Brittany mumbles something about puppies and rainbows and Santana thinks that maybe Brittany just asked her to live with her for the rest of their lives, and it’s not perfect but it’s borderline.

 _It would be totally perfect_ , she thinks  _if I smoked_. She doesn’t though; Brittany thinks cigarettes are gross and this isn’t some Brad Pitt movie.

So they made it.

She messed up and Brittany came to her senses and realized what an idiot Santana can really be but they made it back to the beginning and they’re going to do it all over again, except different, because if she has to see Brittany get grabby with Finn ever again in her life, it’ll be too soon.

One day, they’re going to make it out of Lima, and out of Ohio and as far away from the Midwest as possible – maybe they’ll grab onto the tail end of Rachel’s rise to fame and live somewhere obscure in New York by a park, because Brittany talks about ducks all the time since they had to sing that _ballad_  and she insists she wants one as a pet, but looking at them in the park is the most Santana will budge on the subject.

Maybe they’ll try the West Coast, because keeping Brittany’s body wrapped up in parkas is a crime against humanity.

Regardless of where they go, they’re going together, no matter if it sounds like a cheesy pop song – and she better not mention that to Brittany, because she’ll end up making a playlist that she’ll make Santana sing - and if people don’t like it, they’re going to have to deal with it.

Santana is done with letting outside forces dictate her love life.

Even if most of the force dictating her love life has been very much on the inside, she’s going to conveniently overlook it for sanity’s – and vanity’s – sake.

Brittany mumbles again in her sleep – and okay, Brittany definitely just asked for her to be with her forever – but Santana smiles regardless of her brain screaming  _“Alert! Alert! Red Alert!”_  and pulls Brittany a little closer, kissing a bare shoulder, her breath hitching a little at the way that Brittany’s body molds into her own perfectly.

 _The West Coast definitely_ , she decides. If only so that she can stare at Brittany in a bikini any time she wants to.


End file.
